August 4, 2024

SpaceX Launches Cargo to ISS From Florida (Cygnus Carrier Normally Launches From Virginia) (Sources: NASA, SPACErePORT)
SpaceX launched Northrop Grumman's 21st commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station on Sunday, carrying more than 8,200 pounds of crew supplies, equipment, and science experiments to the orbiting laboratory. The Cygnus missions normally are launched from Virginia's spaceport on Northrop Grumman Antares rockets.

SpaceX Dragon ISS resupply missions don't include payload fairings, allowing easier late loading of cargo. To accommodate late loading on the fairing-enclosed Cygnus, SpaceX had to add a door to the fairing. (8/4)

NASA to Repair KSC Shoreline Erosion Left by Hurricanes Ian, Nicole (Source: Florida Today)
Some shallow estuarine lagoon shorelines at NASA's Kennedy Space Center have lost 20 feet to 30 feet of dirt — or more — the past couple hurricanes. NASA officials are planning a project to restore and stabilize five Kennedy Space Center shoreline areas damaged by hurricanes Ian and Nicole. (8/2)
 
Wanted: Information on August 1968 B-52 Bomber Crash at Cape Kennedy (Source: Florida Today)
An Air Force B-52 bomber aircraft crashed in the southeast corner of what was then called Cape Kennedy in August 1968. The bomber's seven occupants parachuted from the plane before impact, and no injuries were reported at the crash scene. The base commander noted: "nothing was hit but deer and rattlesnakes." College students with the Cape Canaveral Archaeological Mitigation Project will try this winter to find, survey, map and study the B-52 debris field. (8/2)

India Teams with Axiom and NASA for Human Spaceflight (Source: Economic Times)
Towards the goal of mounting a joint ISRO-NASA effort to the ISS, the Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) of ISRO has entered into a Space Flight Agreement (SFA) with NASA-identified service provider Axiom Space, for its upcoming Axiom-4 mission to the ISS. The India-US joint statement during the official state visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US in June last year envisioned a joint Isro-NASA effort to the ISS. "A National Mission Assignment Board has recommended two Gaganyatris as prime and backup Mission Pilot for this mission," Isro said, in a statement on Friday. These are Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla (Prime) and Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair (Backup). (8/2)

Canada's Proposed Spaceport Operator Applauds US Launch Tech Agreement (Source: Maritime Launch)
Maritime Launch Services congratulates the Government of Canada on concluding negotiations on a Technology Safeguard Agreement (TSA) with the United States. This landmark government-to-government treaty represents a significant milestone for the Canadian space industry, particularly launch, and paves the way for enhanced collaboration, innovation, and security in space technology between the two nations.

Maritime Launch is building Spaceport Nova Scotia, Canada’s first and only commercial spaceport located near Canso, Nova Scotia. In 2023, Maritime Launch conducted a first suborbital launch from Nova Scotia and the Company has plans for a first orbital launch in early 2026. Maritime Launch looks forward to leveraging the opportunities within the TSA and collaborating closely with Canada’s largest trading partner, the United States. The Company is well positioned to drive progress and position Canada as a global leader in space exploration and technology. (8/2)

Viability of Scots Spaceport Questioned as No Rockets Launched After £80m Taxpayer Cash Award (Source: Daily Record)
A Scottish spaceport awarded £80million of taxpayers’ cash three years ago has failed to launch any rockets and serious questions have been raised over its viability. We can reveal Astraius - the “horizontal launch” specialist partnering with nationalized Prestwick Airport on the scheme - has missed targets, doesn’t own any aircraft, and had no employees in 2022 or 2021 according to accounts.

The plan is to blast satellites into orbit from the back of an airborne Boeing C-17 Globemaster - but a photograph of one of the military planes on the company’s official social media page has been doctored. (8/4)

Here's How Mark Kelly's Upbringing and Military and NASA Careers Prepared Him for Politics (Source: Arizona Central)
Mark Kelly’s first campaign for office was decided by a coin toss. His twin brother, Scott, also wanted to be student congress president at their suburban New Jersey high school. It was Scott who ended up vice president that time. Fast forward four decades and it could be Mark Kelly’s turn to serve as vice president of the United States.

Arizona’s junior senator, a Garden State native who was pushed into politics after personal tragedy, is being vetted as a possible second-in-command as Democrat Kamala Harris makes a bid for the White House. Americans followed along in newspapers and television spots as Mark and Scott became the first sibling astronauts, let alone identical twins, for NASA’s shuttle program in the mid-1990s. The nation watched after a 2011 shooting left Giffords gravely wounded, and six others dead, and as Mark Kelly helped her recover. (8/3)

Congress Still Waiting on Reports Detailing Biden's Space Command HQ Reversal From Huntsville to Colorado Springs (Source: 1819 News)
Nearly a year after the location of Space Command Headquarters was reversed from Huntsville to Colorado Springs, Congress is still waiting for answers. In January 2021, the Secretary of the Air Force identified the Redstone Arsenal site in Huntsville as the top choice for the Space Command headquarters.

The recommendation for the site was then affirmed by the Inspector General's Office and the Government Accountability Office, both of which found that the Air Force had conducted an accurate analysis and Huntsville was the superior location. Yet on July 31, 2023, government officials reported that President Joe Biden reversed the decision to locate Space Command headquarters in Huntsville and instead selected a location in Colorado.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2024 includes a provision that prohibits funding from being used to expand Space Command headquarters in Colorado Springs. The NDAA will stop the command from renting, planning, designing or constructing new facilities. It is mandated in the NDAA that there is absolutely no funding for the Space Command headquarters or any related facilities whatsoever in Colorado Springs until the DoD's Inspector General and GAO delivers their reports to Congress. (8/3)

GAO Questions Gateway’s Mass, Schedule (Source: Space Policy Online)
The Government Accountability Office wants NASA to document and communicate a mass management plan for the Gateway lunar space station before the next program review in September. The first two Gateway segments are scheduled to launch together in 2027, but their combined mass exceeds allowed limits. GAO also illuminates concerns about the schedule and whether Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element will be capable of controlling the small space station when more massive vehicles are docked. (8/3)

It’s Lights Out at a Cosmic Restaurant (Source: New York Times)
If you’re about to stay up all night atop a cold mountain, to squint through an eyepiece at shimmering, impossibly distant specks of light or to stare at pixels on a screen, it helps to have eaten a good meal first. So it was dismaying to learn recently that Palomar Observatory in Southern California, home to the famous 200-inch Hale Telescope — the “Big Eye” — has closed the kitchen that served elegant sit-down meals to astronomers during their observing runs.

It was simply getting too expensive, the California Institute of Technology, which owns and operates Palomar, announced in May. Thus ends one of the most endearing traditions in astronomy: dinner with your colleagues, a chance to brainstorm, gossip, learn what everybody else is doing, hear old stories, and just hang out together on cloudy nights. (8/4)

Human Muscle Cells Come Back From Space, Look Aged (Source: Ars Technica)
Muscle-on-chip systems are three-dimensional human muscle cell bundles cultured on collagen scaffolds. A Stanford University research team sent some of these systems to the International Space Station to study the muscle atrophy commonly observed in astronauts. It turns out that space triggers processes in human muscles that eerily resemble something we know very well: getting old. “We learned that microgravity mimics some of the qualities of accelerated aging,” said Ngan F. Huang, an associate professor at Stanford who led the study. (8/2)

The Day After a Nuke Goes Off in Space (Source: Real Clear Defense)
Central to deterrence in a world of nuclear anti-satellite weapons will be the ability of conventional military forces to operate without access to satellites. If satellites went down in the aftermath of the detonation of a nuclear space weapon, the ability of long-range strike fighter aircraft and bombers to carry out non-nuclear surface attacks against enemy targets would be crucial to maintaining the option of a conventional response to such an action.

There have been some efforts to improve the ability of U.S. forces to fight in an environment without access to space, but these have been limited compared to activities aimed at maintaining such access. The latter efforts are important, but they will likely not be options once a nuclear anti-satellite weapon goes off.

The Navy and Air Force, with support from the Space Force, should wargame different "denied space" contingencies aimed at learning how to operate in an environment without access to satellites. The lessons from these wargames should then be applied and continued in actual live military exercises. These exercises would be aimed both at training pilots, aircrews, and commanders to conduct operations in a denied space environment but would also demonstrate to Russia and other potential U.S. adversaries that it will always have the option of retaliating with varying degrees of force to any type of nuclear aggression. (8/3)